US Troops Used TV Cop Shows to Train Afghan Police

In the course of the 16-year occupation of Afghanistan, the Pentagon set itself out to take up a huge string of tasks. Among these were training up a whole new Afghan military, and the other was a whole new national police force.

In fact, curriculum was so non-existent for US trainers that they actually watched old episodes of Cops and NCIS to try to figure out the sort of things they should teach the police. Between that, and all the trainers being military personnel has left the Afghan National Police with an “identity crisis,” unclear if they’re a military force, or simply a police force trained by network television.

Sopko described the progress in the $70 million US training mission as “poor,” but expressed hope at least a somewhat better future, with signs of improving from what was a dismal decade and a half start.

Author: Jason Ditz

Later they all watched The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear followed by Loaded Weapon 1.

[Colt and Luger’s car blows up]
Colt: Good thing we used valet parking.
Wes Luger: Taxi!
[the taxi blows up]
Colt: I guess we’re making somebody nervous. I’ll tell you this: It’s gonna take a lot more than a couple of car bombs to get us off of this case.
Wes Luger: Not a helluva lot more.

TheManInTheBunker

I propose the military watch Stripes for developing new basic training methods. Maybe we could get NATO to buy a bunch of copies to distribute since they end up “invading” Czechoslovakia…and we all know that helped win the Cold War.

Mikronos

They used MASH to train medics and educational programs like 90214 and Glee to teach educators, The West Wing was used for politicos and Homeland provided security training. The Simpsons was used to educate Afghans about America and Americans.

Karl Kolchak

Another brilliant success for the 5-sided monstrosity on the Potomac that hasn’t won a war in 72 years.